DJ Camera
DJ Camera, my tuk-tuk driver in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was beginning to creep me out; not majorly, but I was beginning to dread his jolly, round face, and off-centered dirty baseball cap.
He was everywhere.
I arrived, admittedly thanks to DJ Camera, at the Noura Motel unscathed and found that while the $20 rooms were occupied, the manager was willing to let me stay in a $35 room for $25. DJ Camera had something to do with this and I was grateful, but he lingered about the tiny reception desk for too long.
“OK, Thomas,” he said in his over-excited manner of speaking, “go to your room, relax, come down. I wait for you and we make plans for tour tomorrow. We do many things.”
I looked at him and my heart sank a little. His sweaty brown face was staring at me and smiling. He was selling me something. Cabbies, whether in a car, on a bike, or pulling a rickshaw, in this part of the world are always trying to sell you something.
I handed him the few dollars that I owed him and told him that maybe I would see him later, and if I was to take a tour I would go through him.
DJ Camera shook his head in the negative and steamrolled my hesitation and told me that he would take me anywhere. I told him “maybe” a few more times
The Noura Motel has a layout and atmosphere that reminds one of an Old West saloon / hotel. Stairs lead to hallways that branch in many directions, looking over a small bar lit by dim, flickering bulbs. Idle workers stood talking by empty tables that spilled out towards the street. The street was teeming with beggars, tuk-tuks, and the fire of the setting sun.
I was shown to my room on the second floor. I walked through a reading room and down a hallway that led to a wide open balcony. Just across the street stands the royal Chan Chhaya pavilion, a part of the Royal Palace; its green lawns dotted with barefoot kids, sleeping tuk-tuk drivers, and a few soccer balls.
If I didn’t want to sit in the wicker chair and watch the setting sun, then I could have seen it from the massive windows in my room.
Sure enough, when I found my way to the main lobby to leave for dinner, DJ Camera was waiting for me. He sat at a small table just outside of the hotel. As soon as I was close he sprung up and asked where I was headed, if I wanted a ride, and began listing the things we could do the next day.
I cut him off. I told him that I appreciated his effort, but I wasn’t sure if I would be taking a tour tomorrow and that I might just wander around and take photos.
He looked hurt for a moment.
“OK, tomorrow when you want leave,” DJ said, “I will wait you outside hotel.”
He then grabbed my hand, shook it whilst ignoring the growing annoyance on my face, and sat down again.
I understood why DJ Camera was so eager to seal the deal: “maybe,” and “I’ll call you,” generally mean “no” and “fuck off” in his line of work. That has certainly been the underlying meaning when used by myself. What I could not understand was why he didn’t give up and look for business else where. And why was he still outside the motel!?
I walked towards the Meekong and sat down to a traditional Khmer meal of Italian grinder, fries, and alcohol.
I thought of my smiling DJ Camera and of a taxi driver in Mexico.
It was a few years back and I was wandering up the wrong road on the wrong hill. Drug cartels were beginning to take hold of the edge of town and apparently I was walking straight that way. A cabbie came running up, grabbed me and asked me as polite as possible as to where the fuck I was going and if I wanted to die?
I replied no, that I needed a cheap place to sleep.
He drove me for a while until we came to a hotel on the edge of a bay full of dirty water and men in tin boats hawking fresh fish.
This man had the same anxious tone as DJ Camera and wanted me to take a tour with him the next day as well but there seemed to be something more sinister about him. The hotel was on the edge of town and I became paranoid that this cabbie knew where I was and that my door was only a sliding plastic curtain. Friends from Mexico and guidebooks warn of local cabbies aiming for extortion, kidnapping, or worse.
I slept with my bed against the door and when he didn’t come to kill me and I never let him take me for a tour I felt guilt. I was ashamed of my paranoia.
Still, DJ Camera just wanted my money.
DJ Camera asked me how my dinner was when I arrived at the hotel. I shot him a look but there was no reaction..
“Tomorrow…” he went on again.
“MAYBE!” I told him and walked away.
“I will wait you tomorrow.”
After a few power-outages I headed downstairs to use the wi-fi and have a bottle of Angkor beer, the local version of the cheap, flavorless, working class beer of the world.
The two person bar staff talked in a corner and the tables outside the hotel were swarmed. Laughter rose frequently and the slamming of beer glasses and the clink of utensils against glass plates. Khmer filled the air. I half expected DJ Camera to -
“Hello!” said DJ Camera, standing up from his chair outside.
I stared at him in disbelief. Behind him tuk-tuk drivers slept in their vehicles. People walked by on their way to the bars or restaurants of the Phnom Penh night; but here was DJ Camera, still sitting outside my hotel.
I returned the greeting, disregarded whatever else he said and continued to drink my unfinished beer and then a second when I felt somebody staring at me.
I looked out the door and DJ Camera was stooping in, looking uncharacteristically meek. I stared at him for a moment and he spoke quietly.
“Thomas,” his memory was impressive, “please, it is a happy night. You are in Cambodia. Do not sit alone. Sit with me outside and drink.”
Shit.
I had him wrong like I probably had the cabbie in Mexico wrong. I pride myself in adaptability and openness in travel but here, I had it all wrong.
What the fuck?
I smiled, closed my computer and joined a smiling DJ Camera outside.
The table was full of food and pitchers of beer. There were two men at the table with DJ Camera. They smiled at me. A group of extremely beautiful girls laughed at me as I mumbled awkward “hellos“.
The man next to me was another tuk-tuk driver and the man next to DJ Camera was the manager of the lovely Noura Motel, and a close friend of DJ Camera’s.
“We are like family,” said the manager, a squat smiling man with one of the friendliest faces I have ever seen. “We take care of eachother.”
I felt shame.
I looked at the man who I assumed wanted only to take my money.
“Tonight, Thomas,” DJ Camera said, “you are our new friend and we take care of you.”
They did take care of me. There were pitchers of local beer mixed with a beer from Singapore. They pushed a kind of edible rice cloth my way and it tasted like a neutral rice cake on it’s own but it was heaven in the sweet, fishy dipping sauce.
“Traditional Cambodian,” my new friends told me.
There were questions about me, questions about my time in Korea and Vietnam. There were questions about Cambodia, whose answers were to be expected:
“Cambodia is the best!”
The four of us spoke and drank for a time as we descended into the universal language of drunkeness.
“Thomas,” DJ Camera said, eyes glazed over after declaring that he had left school sometime before high school, “you are my friend!”
“Good friends,” I corrected.
“I saw you alone and I take care of you. I take you to my friend’s motel. Tonight you eat and drink with us. We take care of you. Tomorrow I want you to see Cambodia!”
Finally, I agreed.
Jol Moi! We all said as we clinked our glasses and drank.
“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “Can you understand my English?”
“Nobody can understand your English!” Piped in the other tuk-tuk.
“Thomas, DJ is very drunk. Nobody can understand!” Said the manager of the motel.
DJ began to introduce me to the girls scattered around in the night. The tuk-tuk drivers parked across the street looked over occasionally if they weren’t otherwise occupied by being passed out.
The night wore on for a while until finally the alcohol was gone. I pulled out my wallet but was hissed at by all three of my companions.
“Thomas,” said DJ Camera, “tomorrow I will wait you. Sleep long. I will be here.”
“Maybe you will have no tour tomorrow,” said the manager, “DJ will probably crash into a tree tonight!”